Fleshrot is a fairly unique project by Nobody Records founder Mark Harvey. Mark is a huge fan of all things horror and Halloween, and Nobody Records is his outlet. Thus far he has put out three HauntScape albums for use in haunted attractions and a number of other similarly themed projects. His latest venture is the Fleshrot “soundtrack”. It is 13 songs inspired by the graphic novel, “Fleshrot: Tales from the Dead”.

When I first heard about this album I was quite excited as I had expectations of searing metal songs about zombies, death, and gore. Well, I got the songs about zombies, death, and gore, but the searing metal songs were sadly left far behind. Basically, SONGS FROM THE DEAD is a collection of rock songs interspersed with “ambient” sound scapes meant to inspire horror, or at the very least some creepy feelings. Honestly, the sound scape portion of the album does absolutely nothing for me, sounding like nothing more than a collection of random sounds that could be taken from any generic horror movie. How they specifically relate to the graphic novel I don’t know. Perhaps if I’d read the novel then I might find it more interesting.

The actual songs on the album are equally lackluster. There is no metal here, but actually hard rock. Average hard rock. No song is particularly catchy or memorable, and they all just kind of blur together in a haze, once again, not igniting any kind of particular emotions. Then again, at least there’s nothing on here that will inspire abject hatred.

As I said earlier, I might find this album more interesting if I had read the novel that this is based on, but I somehow doubt it. Gimmicks can’t hide subpar music.